Bill, even though the quote you posted was from 2004, no one has yet posted the "original" sauce formula. Ponerspal never returned to this thread. One additional problem is defining what the original formula is, as it changed over the years.

The people who posted here and worked at Shakey's all worked there at a time when Shakey's provided the stores with a bag of seasonings for the sauce. No one ever reported that they had to mix seasonings and spices from raw, bulk spices.

I see that there is a decent want for the old Shakeys pizza sauce/skin..

If anyone is ever up in the Reno area, check out Boulevard Pizza.. The owners de-franchised themselves when Shakeys decided to change their ideals and recipes. You can go get the same pizza that you remember from back in the day. Including the ginormous knife used to cut the pies. They even have MoJos.. except the name had to be changed to Rojos.

I stumbled upon this thread and I had to share this info with everyone

Thanks for posting. That pizza looks great, and does have a Shakey's quality-look to it. I've never been to Reno, but now I am thinking I need to change that.

Ernie, I took a look at the web site of Boulevard Pizza, actually located in the city of Sparks, Nevada. The make the following claims about their thin crust pizza, which mirrors my own work in developing a Shakey's clone.1. They use fresh mozzarella.2. They ferment their dough for 24 hours, and make it in a Hobart mixer.3. Their sauce is made from thick (high specific gravity) puree.4. They add three pounds of spices to each batch of sauce, but don't give the size of the batch. If they puree fresh onions and add sugar or dextrose to the sauce, that would account for most of three pounds.5. They slice their own vegetables. Not sure if Shakey's uses pre-sliced vegetables these days.

So, they are doing what others who once worked at Shakey's posted. Even if they added a few herbs, spices, and flavors that were not used in any "official" Shakey's recipes, these pizzas should be outstanding since they use what a lot of really good independent pizzerias use.

The water, minced onion, basil and garlic are mixed in a saucepan and cooked until the dried onion is translucent. After letting the mixture cool, the wine, ground oregano, and dextrose is added and stirred. Finally, the pizza sauce is added to the saucepan and everything is thoroughly mixed. The mixture is then placed in a quart-size reclosable plastic storage bag and left in the refrigerator for two days, being periodically agitated by hand to mix the ingredients.

The pizza sauce already contains salt and citric acid. Adding salt and powdered citric acid was not necessary. Many sauces you buy today lists "natural flavor" as an ingredient. As mentioned in a previous post, we think whatever flavor(s) they are adding tastes a lot like wine. Barbera D'Asti wine was the best match out of several wines we tried. This wine was mentioned in a lot of Internet posts as being a good accompaniment to pizza.http://www.chiarlo.it/english/vini/barbera_d_asti/leorme/index.htm

A few remarks about the dry ingredients. After trying Spice Islands and Badia ground oregano, we think the Badia (Miami, FL) is a better match. It is a Hispanic market food item. We selected Lisy (Miami, FL) garlic powder as the best match. The closest match of basil leaves were the supermarket house brands made by McCormick; we bought it under the Hannaford label. The closest match of minced onions were the supermarket house brands produced by the ACH Food Companies, bought under the Food Lion label. The dextrose was bought from a nearby beer/wine home brewing store. Powdered citric acid, used in early experiments and with an Escalon tomato product, was purchased in a big international foods supermarket catering to Asian, Indian, and Hispanic customers.

The hardest part is finding a canned tomato product that duplicates the tomato paste and water mixture that they start with in the sauce factory. We literally tried every thick tomato product available at local supermarkets, as well as at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Super Walmart, including the new Classico line. We even obtained a #10 can of Heinz' current version of 1.06 specific gravity tomato puree. None of these products had the tomato flavor profile of the current Shakey's sauce. We now actually prefer the taste of this SuperDolce pizza sauce. This sauce has a coarser finish than the Shakey's sauce and can't be blended with much liquid because, according to Stanislaus,"Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The tradeoff for SuperDolce®’s super sweet flavor is that it contains less moisture-retaining pectin, so it won’t "hold" as much added moisture as its cousin, Saporito® Super Heavy Pizza Sauce".

I believe the best match will come from one of the California fresh pack tomato puree or pizza sauce foodservice products. I did try a batch using Stanislaus Full Red tomato paste, but it was not a good match. The problem for us is that while we have two local foodservice distributors that will sell cash-and-carry, they only sell in full case lots. We will price out a shipment from Penn Mac. We no longer have any samples of genuine Shakey's sauce, and it will be a few months before we receive anymore. We can't place any other common herbs or spices in this sauce other than those mentioned. Some of the early heat we experienced turned out coming from the pepperoni drippings. It is possible there are additional herbs and spices added to the mix, or it may just be some "natural flavors" turned out by such fine folks as Kerry Americas and Wild Flavors.

Again, the criteria we are using is to clone the sauce currently used at the corporate-owned locations in California. We are testing against actual samples of baked pizza and sauce.

If the (legal) bookmakers in England were taking bets on who was making Shakey's sauce, I would put a few pounds Sterling down on Neil Jones Food Company/San Benito.

... although I've posted this previously as text, this picture is an actual can of what we used to make sauce at Shakey's on the Rockville Pike (Rockville, MD), circa 1975. See my previous posts for my best recollections on the recipe, but simply said it was Puree (see can picture), water and spice mix bag(s). The bags were just that, sealed paper bags of spices (plastic lined); not pouches of premade sauce. Sorry, I have no information on the ingrediant list from the spice bags. When I left Shakey's and the town of Rockville many years ago, I really haven't had shakey's pizza since then, until only a couple years ago when I took the opportunity to visit the Rancho Cucamonga store in California, purportedly the official corporate store. I also visited a couple other LA-area stores while in the area. The sauce at the Rancho C store really stood out to me as being the same as I remembered. It had that ZING. No telling who makes it, but the sauce is definately a Shakey's packaged product (I watched the truck unload cases of it). Probably pouches of sauce. Enjoy - let me know any questions - Lightmeter

The recipe for the sauce made in Rockville is likely buried under the straw shown in this picture. It was taken February 6, 2012 and shows part of the fence surrounding the site of the former Shakey's in Rockville. I may try to get a better picture at some later point, but I wanted to document the location relative to other buildings in the same shopping center. There are still aerial photos of the building on yp.com and both aerial and street views from June 2009 over at Google Maps.

The photographs that lightmeter posted are truly remarkable. Its almost like the photo album of our lives. Here is an actual scan of the 2011 version of that Heinz puree label. The full 12 digit UPC number is 0-13000-57270-5. Heinz item number is 57270.

June 15, 2008 To master Shakey’s thin-crust pizza, Hunter sent his managers to several weeks of intensive training in California.The process involves mixing and proofing the dough and rolling it through a dough sheeter 12 to 14 times. Bubbles that form in the crust as the pizza travels through the conveyor oven have to be tapped down with a metal implement.“When you do this properly, the dough separates by layers and makes a very light and very crispy crust,” Hill said.He noted that thin-crust pies account for about 60 percent of pizza sales in Southern California, the rest come from pan pizza.

These two recent ingredient declarations lead one to question if there are two versions of the sauce in use, which is of interest in cloning efforts. I know of one quick service restaurant chain that purchases their custom-manufactured signature ingredient from two sources for business continuity purposes. It would be interesting to know if anyone spots cartons of Shakey's sauce with the ingredients declaration of January 2011 on them.

Finally, some folks like lightmeter might be interested in cloning the version that was in use in his or her local Shakey's back in the day. Of the people who used to work in a Shakey's and posted lists of the tomato products they used, we have in the list Hunt's tomato puree, Hunt's tomato sauce, and Heinz tomato puree. These issues should be kept in mind when trying out the sauce recipes posted here.

I had some downtime to ponder it this weekend, so I’m posting the following “toppings” details. If you ever wondered why people have such a fond recollection of Shakey’s pizza, it’s here. The ingredients were fresh and top grade. Papa John’s would be seriously challenged to say better ingredients compared to this. Enjoy.

Note: This is provided purely as an archive for Shakey’s on the Rockville Pike (Rockville, MD), circa 1975, and isn’t claimed to be “the” recipe for all stores/franchises. These are the ingredients we used for the menu I presviously posted. The sauce and dough recipes on this forum continue to be in-progress and are clearly a store/franchise-specific thing. Same is true for topping menu items. Also, Shakey’s didn't precook sauce or ingredients - or any of the menu items.We didn't have a food processor or chopper of any kind. We had a Hobart slicer, Hobart mixer/grinder and a knife.

Once again – not too bad for 30 years later, eh?…

Grotto, Dynadeuce, Joel – please weigh in. We seem to be on the same wavelength recipe-wise and prep-wise.

Sauce: Sauce was wire whipped in the Hobart mixer to combine purée, water and spice mix, stored in 35 gallon+ Rubbermaid cans, two large batches per can. Sauce was spread on each pizza using a horsehair paintbrush (yes – you heard me), spread to the very edge each of each skin, and sometimes beyond. Sauce was not weighed. When pizzas were ready for the oven, each pizza was scraped with a painters putty knife around, and just under, the circumference edge before giving the peel a final wiggle to verify that the finished pizza was freely rolling on the corn meal base and ready for sliding off the prep peel into the oven. For a batch, we used three (3) cases of Heinz puree per batch, six #10 cans per case, plus 1 can water per case (adding water was a cost-wise thing that allowed us to add a small amount of water to each empty can to wash out any remaining puree). I’ll need to correct my previous post that stated water was added in equal amounts. That’s not correct.

Cheese: Kraft mozzarella, provolone and cheddar. Parmesan was kept in shaker jars at each make-station of which a light dusting was added as a final topping just prior to baking. The same parmesan shakers were available for patrons to take to their tables for addition after pizzas were cooked. Crushed, dried, red pepper flakes were also available to patrons to take to their tables. The three cheese mix was ground on premise in the Hobart grinder. The three cheese mix was supposed to be stored in covered bus tubs in the cooler, (everything in the cooler is required to be covered) but it was well known how much easier it was to prep pizzas with a slightly dry, crumbling mixture versus a freshly ground, wet mix, so the dehydrating effect of the cooler was allowed to dry the mix, otherwise the cooks complained - lots. When the Shakey’s cops showed up on occasion we knew to scramble to cover the bus tubs. So, at this store, on this date, there were no seven cheese pizzas at this store, only four. Cheese was weighed and spread on each pizza to within one-half inch of the edge. Proportions are a bit fuzzy. Mad _Ernie says 70% mozz, 15% prov, 15% cheddar which isn’t right. Cheddar was the least proportion. When I see posters with pictures of pizzas with orange cheddar spread on top, or burned cheddar pizzas, I know they’re off. Cheddar was just a small component. I’d estimate mozz/prov/ched something on the order of 80:15:1. Cheddar was a piece of the flavor/color profile, but not much.

Green Peppers:Fresh produce delivered daily, provided whole, stem core popped with a smack of the palm, or a jab of a knuckle, deseeded by pulling the stem core out with as much of the seeds attached as possible, a quick shake to get any additional loose seeds out, then sliced on premise in Hobart slicer, stored in covered bus tubs in walk-in cooler. Free toss on each pizza.

Onions: Fresh produce delivered daily, whole white onions, soaked in a sink of water, then hand prepped by slicing caps off, then one slice down from top to bottom to release skin, peel skin and discard, sliced on premise in Hobart slicer, stored in covered bus tubs in walk-in cooler. Free toss on each pizza. I can't remember if we diced the onions or used sliced onions on the pizzas. I do remember diced onions on the steak sandwiches though so we likely hand chopped enough for the sandwich make table. Perhaps we ran onions through the slicer twice? Anyone recall?

Pepperoni:Hormel sticks provided in a cardboard case, est 24 per case, 3 feet long, each wrapped in deli wax paper casings, paper was sliced long-wise with box cutter razor and then peeled off, sliced on premise in Hobart slicer, stored in covered bus tubs in walk-in cooler, slices were placed edge to edge on each pizza.

Lean Beef: Fresh ground Hamburger delivered daily, mixed with ground black pepper, allowed to dry uncovered using the dehumidifier effect of the walk in cooler, hand mixed after drying, stored in covered bus tubs in walk-in cooler. Weighed for each pizza size, spread evenly. There may have also been a Shakey’s bag added here too. I don’t think so, I just don’t recall. I’m also not perfectly sure that we didn’t grind our own hamburger, but I don’t think so.

Italian Sausage:Fresh never frozen thick sliced pork chops, delivered daily, low grade, high fat, ground on premises in Hobart grinder, mixed with bagged Shakey’s seasoning mix, hand mixed, stored in covered bus tubs in walk-in cooler. Much wetter than the beef mixture, the Italian sausage was weighed for each pizza and then small bits were pinched from the weighed mass and placed evenly on the pizza. Weighed for each pizza size, spread evenly.

Canadian Bacon: Hormel brand, delivered in plastic sleeves, high quality, est 4 inches diameter by 3 feet long, appearance of a nice canned ham, high fat, high water content, sliced on premise in Hobart slicer, stored in covered bus tubs in walk-in cooler. Slices placed evenly, edges close or touching.

Eastern Polish Sausage:Hmmmm, I forgot we had that, rarely sold other than the Captains Delight menu item, delivered as links, sliced on premises in Hobart slicer, stored in covered bus tubs in walk-in cooler. I don't recall how it was measured for each pizza.

Anchovies: The menu says they're sourced from Lisban. I believe it. Provided in steel cans, kept under lock and key until opened, cans opened with bench opener or old style "twist key" (really can't remember), very expensive, imported. One can was stored in one make station and returned to cooler each night.

White Mushrooms: I can't say enough about the produce we got, mushrooms were beautiful fresh white mushrooms, est 2-4 inches avg, some larger, soaked in the prep sink full of water to remove dirt, sliced caps and stems on premise in Hobart slicer. (...and all this from someone who doesn't like mushrooms), stored in covered bus tubs in walk-in cooler, free toss on each pizza.

If the above are all considered toppings then corn meal must be included as the bottomings: each pizza was prepared on a healthy dusting of very fine yellow cornmeal. Provided in 25# bags, stored in rolling plastic food bins.

4. They add three pounds of spices to each batch of sauce, but don't give the size of the batch. If they puree fresh onions and add sugar or dextrose to the sauce, that would account for most of three pounds.

How certain are you this is the amount used? Where did you get this info?

If true, the rough amount of spices to tomato puree can be determined using the information provided by lightmeter. For the calculation I assume roughly 3T per oz of spices:

Does that sound about right for this sauce? Seems a bit on the light side to me, but then again I don't have a good recollection of Shakey's sauce. This also assumes the "batch size" hasn't changed over time.

They used puree as their sauce with loads of spices in it....oregano onion & garlic powder parsley salt & pepper as well as a hint basil. An institutional size can of puree to 1/2 cup spice mixture.

It appears to have come from another chat or message board, but couldn't even begin to guess from where. Other stuff within those notes indicate that is may have been just prior to or in the beginning of Jacmar ownership.

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The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.They say he acquired his size from eating too much pi.

Here is an interesting food archeology question: What brands/types of canned tomato puree were available to food service operators in Central California in 1954?

Zing,

I don't know who had tomato puree in '54 but the big brands that processed tomatoes here were; Hunt's, Heinz, DelMonte/Contadina, Escalon, Stanislaus and Campbell's. Any food service pamphlets I might have would be from the 60-70's. There may have been others in the more southern part of the central valley. In the upper part there is Sacramento Tomato. They may be worth looking into, but I think that current operations is solely manufacture of tomato juice. I also have no idea who Sysco has ever contracted with for any of their private label stuff.

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The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.They say he acquired his size from eating too much pi.

This makes perfect sense to me. We filled large Rubbermaid plastic cans with 2 batches per day and stored them in the cooler, which means the Rubbermaid cans had to hold the two batches, or 34 gallons. Many typical trash can sizes are in the 35 gallon range.

that Boulevard Pizza is one of the many stores that dropped the Shakey's franchise and went independent but made essentially the same pizza. Some travelers may be interested in former Shakey's restaurants that still serve similar pizza, Mojo potatoes, etc.

I don't know who had tomato puree in '54 but the big brands that processed tomatoes here were; Hunt's, Heinz, DelMonte/Contadina, Escalon, Stanislaus and Campbell's. Any food service pamphlets I might have would be from the 60-70's. There may have been others in the more southern part of the central valley. In the upper part there is Sacramento Tomato. They may be worth looking into, but I think that current operations is solely manufacture of tomato juice. I also have no idea who Sysco has ever contracted with for any of their private label stuff.

Shakey's first store was opened in Sacramento in 1954. Just like the former employees who posted here that they made the sauce from canned tomato products, the original Shakey's must have also made sauce from #10 cans of tomato product. Unfortunately, the folks who made that sauce are probably no longer with us. But knowing who was canning tomatoes helps narrow down the foodservice purees to try out.

"Here is a vid from Mexico (NO sound) you can see how thin the dough is and how craggy the edges are. It's a DRY dough. "

Lydia, this is an interesting observation that I have been ruminating on for a few days now. The dough does look dry, however it's very extensible. Look at how the folds do not "crack" from the dryness, they just curve up. It's almost as though these cracker styles have a low hydration but are spiked with a dough conditioner or something to improve the slackness of the dough. I will have to explore this further. Thanks for the observation and the link. I am shocked at how the dough performs on the sheeter given it's apparent dryness. If I make a dry dough, it does not perform like that on my sheeter, regardless of how thin I make it. Interesting.